Smiles in the Hallways
by Commodore Norrington
Summary: Someone reflects on the effect Lily had on his life.
1. Smiles in the Hallways

Is it possible to love and hate someone at the same time?  
Apparently. When I look at him, all I can see is his father. His arrogant, bullying father who never left me a moment's peace. And in most ways, that's the way he is. But sometimes...sometimes he looks at me with those eyes. His mother's eyes. Lily's eyes...  
She never knew, of course. I was too cruel to her. She was decent, for the most part, to me, though occasionally I would overstep my bounds and invoke her wrath. I hated myself for that, but it did keep the walls up around my heart. And besides, it was how I was raised.  
My parents were not the sort of people to appreciate Muggles or half- bloods. My father was as dark as Dark wizards come, and my mother was not much better. (Ironically, Sirius Black's family was rather similar to mine, a fact I try not to dwell upon.) My parents enjoyed what is commonly known as 'Muggle-baiting', or what they called 'having a little fun'. If a Muggle happened to get seriously injured, or even die, so much the better. And so I was taught that Muggles were slightly lower than pond-scum on the evolutionary scale and that half-bloods were not any better for being able to perform magic.  
I first met Lily on the train to Hogwarts in our first year. I didn't know she was a half-blood until much later. I was attracted instantly; any red-blooded male would be. She had gorgeous red hair and bright green eyes, and her voice was melodic. She had a way of looking at you like she was reading your soul...  
A wedge was driven between us quickly. She was sorted into Gryffindor, I into Slytherin. There could be no larger difference. I rarely saw her, except for the few joint classes we had. Occasionally we would cross paths in the hallways; she would smile at me until I managed some sneering comment about her parentage. She took it all very well. Dropping the smile, she would hold her head high and walk past as if I wasn't even there. It only intrigued me more. Such strength of character, such dignity...  
It was our fifth year when she had finally had enough. The incident with Potter after the O.W.L.s had brought her to my rescue, but I was too proud and too humiliated to accept it. So, like the Dark idiot I was, I told her I didn't need help from a M-------. That was, apparently, the final straw. She left me to Potter and never smiled at me in the hallways again.  
It was a dark time for me. Though I could never admit it to myself and certainly not to her, those smiles had brightened my days. The way her green eyes glowed when her mouth turned upward...I felt like she really meant it. She had that effect on everyone. But now, I had destroyed any hope I ever had of...I don't know what. Civility, I suppose. Friendship? Not likely. Romance? Impossible.  
Instead of roaming the halls looking for a chance meeting with her, now I spent my limited free time brushing up on hexes or shooting flies off the ceiling of the dormitory. My mind turned from relatively happy thoughts of a certain bright someone to dark memories of my father. My father yelling at my mother, my father screaming at me in a drunken rage, my father killing a house-elf when his soup was too hot. While I had been considering, vaguely, an innocuous profession in alchemy, I now decided definitely to pursue my father's dream. I would join the Dark Lord. The worst part was, no matter how much I tried to blame my darker outlook on life on her, I knew it was my fault.  
After we left Hogwarts, I saw her again only once. We were on opposite sides of a battle; I under a mask, she fiercely unveiled. The sight of her, fighting so strongly for her cause, reminded me of better times, of smiles in the hallways. I decided then that I would turn spy for Dumbledore, champion of Good, hero of Muggles and half-bloods. I did not agree with him; I did not much like him. I did it for her.  
And so now, when I look at Harry Potter, I do not know who I see. The spawn of the boy I hated? Or the son of the woman I loved? 


	2. Child of Another Father

"Potter! Can't you do anything right? It's powdered Hasei root, not Asaifut!"  
"Yes, Professor Snape," the boy replied quietly, his anger barely concealed behind gritted teeth.  
It's not that I enjoy criticizing him in public, although occasionally his resemblance to his father becomes overwhelmingly difficult to pass up. It's rather more of a defense mechanism. I cannot allow...previous emotions...for the boy's mother to interfere with the professor-pupil relationship. And, after all, he is a Gryffindor. What am I supposed to do?  
Sometimes I catch myself, in the quiet of a rare free moment, dreaming about those eyes on another boy's face. A boy with an aquiline nose, lank black hair, and no glasses. A boy to teach the subtle art of potion-making, the intricacies of wand-work, or just how to play Quidditch. A boy I could love. My boy.  
I never quite know what to make of those daydreams. Should I be more amiable to Potter? Or should I spurn him all the more because he is not mine? At times I wish to kill him, he is so like his father. Other times, though, and it is near impossible to resist the urge to comfort him, hold him, treat him as my own. And so I criticize, scoff, ridicule. Exactly what I did to his mother. And I hate myself for it.  
Sometimes, it's not even criticism. Occasionally I find myself giving advice, quite unintentionally of course, that is actually useful. I disguise it as criticism, though, for he must never know. The Occlumency lessons come to mind. I pushed him and pushed him hard, but he came out of it stronger and wiser. In Potions, also, I browbeat him constantly. Not, as it may appear, for the pleasure of it, but to teach him to cope in unpleasant situations. To teach him that life is not always fair.  
It wasn't for me, but that was my fault. I don't want him making the same mistakes I did. If it takes making him hate me, so be it. I die every time his mother's eyes turn to me with that look of utter loathing, but I'm doing it for him. And, I suppose, for her. 


End file.
